Марни Азарелли: Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology

Fanny was standing at the parlor window, where she raised one dainty porcelain hand whilst beckoning to Sophie.

“Stop it! Stop yelling!” Sophie whispered. “Go away!” She searched the windows for their mistress.

The girl climbed out of bed and crawled over the bedroom carpet on her hands and knees. She bent her face to Fanny’s eye level and heard the doll’s house matriarch murmur, “Don’t tell, Sophie. Never tell. We are your family now.”

Sophie gasped, pulling away, at the pin-prick of pain stabbing into her cheek. She pressed her finger there and a tiny droplet of blood transferred onto her index finger. Glancing down she noticed the pin in Fanny’s hand. The doll smiled at her. The smile transformed the impassive china face with the painted red lips into something Halloween like and cruel. Cracks appeared in Fanny’s cheeks and a flow of black mites poured from her eyes. Her lips pouted and she blew a kiss towards Sophie. The other dolls giggled and shuffled, leaving their window spots.

Sophie rushed to the safety of her bed, holding a tissue to her cheek and pulling the duvet up over her head.

Leave me alone, she begged silently. Please. I don’t know what you want.

“ Time to get up.” Jen sighed, the next morning at 8am. She threw back the curtains.

Her signing’s really improving, Sophie thought. Dear Aunty Jen, she does try so hard. Sophie hoped nothing bad would happen to her aunt. She prayed Fanny would leave her alone; leave both of them alone. I love Aunty Jen. I don’t want to lose her like I lost Mum. She didn’t allow herself to remember her Dad, Fanny had been right when she’d said, “He was a wicked man, dear.”

“OK, Aunt Jen. Won’t be long.” Sophie signed back. She dressed without looking at the doll’s house but couldn’t resist a fleeting glance as she left her room. The rooms were in darkness, the frontage closed, no doll stood at the windows but on the front lawn lay Patch, head and tail missing. Just his canine torso lay there. Sophie shivered. Fanny was sending her a message.

Jen and Sophie drove the hour long trip to The Northern Women’s Prison, mainly in silence, which didn’t bother Sophie. Silence seldom did. It puzzled her why adults felt the need to fill it with idle chatter.

Jen kept asking, “Are you up to this, Sophie? We can go back if it’s all too much?”

“It’s fine, Aunty. I’m fine, Don’t worry.” Sophie signed, then closed her eyes to end the conversation.

It seemed an age to Sophie, – the waiting on the black plastic bucket chairs, until she spotted her mother being escorted through to the visitors’ room. When she glimpsed her, Sophie’s heart picked up a beat and her stomach flip-flopped with love and worry.

She looks the same, but thinner and her hairs short. But it’s still Mum. Oh Mum I miss.

Sophie started signing so fast, it was as if her hands were flying. She knew it would be too fast for her aunt to keep up. This suited Sophie. She and her mum were giggling, finishing off each others sentences. It was like old times. Her mum hadn’t forgotten anything, Sophie realized, she was following all of the word shapes.

It’s now. Now is the time to tell.

“I know you didn’t do it, Mum.” Sophie’s fingers raced.

Alice’s face grew still and her eyebrows went up. She began to look anxious. “Why do you say that, darling?” she signed.

“I know who it really was. The dolls told me. It was Fanny’s idea. She organized it. She tripped Dad when he was at the top of the stairs. She had help. The chauffeur and the gardeners did it, following her instructions. The dolls do whatever Fanny tells them to. But you know that, don’t you? Mum, I can get you out of here. I just have to tell the police.”

Sophie’s smile lit up her face. Aunt Jen looked pleased to see her niece looking so happy and animated, although she felt rather left out of the conversation.

Alice’s eyes flickered, first to her sister and then towards the female guard standing, bored, apparently indifferent, near the door. She chewed her bottom lip hard, but her hands never stopped moving.

“No, darling. Don’t say that ever. To anyone. It was me. Your dad hurt me once too often. I just cracked. You’re safe now, aren’t you? You’re happy, with Aunty Jen?”

“Oh yes, Mum. It’s lovely at their house. But it’s not the same as being with you. Let me tell them…”

“NO!”

The word exploded out of Alice. There was no doubt at that moment as to what she was saying and how upset she was. The guard stepped forward; on alert. Jen shoved her chair back in alarm. “What’s wrong, Alice? What’s Sophie saying? I can’t follow you both when you sign so fast.”

“Nothing, nothing. Just keep her safe. Please Jen—” Alice pleaded, grabbing her sister’s hand. Then she stood up, squeezing Sophie’s face between her hands and kissing her on the forehead. Sophie felt like crying. Her great plan to get her mum freed had gone wrong.

“Five minutes left.” The guard intoned, professionally impassive.

Sophie had nothing left to try. It was useless, she saw that now. Her mum didn’t believe her. She realized she should have told Alice years ago about the dolls and their secret lives. She must sound mad pouring it all out here, like this in the prison. As though it was a lie and a trick to get her out. It wasn’t though.

Alice stretched out to take her daughter’s hand. She sketched the letters ‘I- l-o-v-e y-o-u’ on Sophie’s palm, just as she had done many times before. Then quickly she drew the letters, ‘ I- k-n-o-w.’

She folded Sophie’s fingers into a fist and kissed them. Alice looked into her daughter’s eyes and nodded – once. Sophie was confused. What did her mum know? What was she trying to say?

“Love you, Mum. To infinity and back.” She signed off with the special code phrase they’d used since Sophie was a tiny tot.

Her Mum got up and walked away, and crushed by a sense of failure, Sophie took hold of Jen’s offered hand and walked away from her mother. Her stomach shriveled into a tight ball.

“What did Alice say to you at the end there, Sophie?” Jen knew she had missed out on something important. Sophie didn’t reply. She had no words at that moment.

Jen kept tight hold of Sophie’s hand as they walked along the prison corridors recalling everything Dr. Lucas had told her in confidence: – how concerned she was that Sophie was transferring the blame for her father’s death from her mother onto herself. This was quite common. Sophie was just a child and Dr. Lucas said, she couldn’t process the horror of her mother committing murder. Apparently it would take years of therapy to get Sophie over that hurdle. But Jen was committed. She would do whatever it took to make Sophie well. This was her blood, her family, her sister’s only child. She owed her.

Jen escorted Sophie to their Audi, put it into gear and set off. The grey façade of the prison’s walls became a speck in the rear-view mirror. While her niece stared out of the window, Jen continued to follow her own line of thought.

She recalled occasions on the landing outside her niece’s bedroom door, where she would listen to Sophie playing with her dolls. In Mark’s words, “That weird, creepy, antiquated house, your grandma insisted on passing on to her.” She’d watch her niece through the door crack, positioning the dolls, moving them around, whispering to them for hours in her blurred speech, then waiting as if for a reply. Jen noticed the damage appearing on the dolls’ faces and bodies. The scratches, the broken limbs, even the total loss of limbs and the dolls’ body parts scattered around.